


Run The World

by tommoandbambi



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: AU, Boys Suck, Crack, Except for Ed he's a cool dude, F/F, Feminism, Genderswap, Girl Direction, Trigger Warning: Cancer, Trigger Warning: Past Mention of Attempted Rape, but that's about it, gender equality, i have no idea what this is but its hella fun to write, i will kiss you if you do, pls just give it a shot, superhero, they're all cisgirls, this is kinda x-men(ish) in the sense that they meet at a mutant school, who run the world??????????, yeh this fic is actually a funny one
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-31
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2018-07-11 07:45:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7039051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tommoandbambi/pseuds/tommoandbambi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i> "it's an orchestrated façade of smoke and mirrors. they're manipulating us and trivializing our powers until we're nothing but pawns. we have to fight back; we have to stand up for ourselves." </i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>  [aka: a fem!direction au in which they are all superheroes and management is still evil.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Run The World

**Author's Note:**

> YOOOOOOOO!
> 
> so I don't have a beta for this fic and it's totally fucking self-indulgent so just believe me on this one it's gonna be a wild yet fun ride. it's already all planned out and I am jusT VERY EXCITED BECAUSE I AM A SLUT FOR FEMINISM AND HEROES OK
> 
> aaanyways, this will only have 5 chapters and I hope to have this finished by the end of the summer so wish me luck??

**THE SKULL-CRUSHINGLY CLICHE BUT ACTION-PACKED PRESENT:**

 

If there is one thing that Louis is absolutely certain of, it's the fact that she was _never_ meant to become a hero.

Girls like her that have an angry red-streak and a penchant for stealing the wallets out of old men's pockets are definitely not supposed to have any sort of productive talents other than maybe being able to make license plates while stuck in some dreary prison that's less like Orange is the New Black and more like the Shawshank Redemption. She has always been that person that was openly detested by everyone and she _loved_ it. She loved the animosity and being able to spout off shit at girl's that wore too much make-up and always smelled like the overly-sweet-weird-fruit-scented lotions that her little sister always loved to sample at Bath and Bodyworks. Louis is a resident bad-arse that was never _supposed_ to have any direction in life, but that all quickly changed in the span of one treatment for cancer and a shitty stay at an all-girl's boarding school grouped with a copious amount of lesbian moments that was enough to forever provide material for her wank bank.

And, sure, perhaps she should be eternally grateful for the fact that some shining brand of destiny decided to smile down on her and grant her with not only the chance to survive motherfucking brain cancer and she also got some weird, radiation-induced _superpower_ because of it. But she can't help but think that the person that orchestrates fate (whoever _that_ is, Louis' best guess is that her entire life has been dictated by some Michael Bay wannabe) made a massive mistake while handing out powers. Like, who in their right mind would give a girl that has a lot of pent-up anger and daddy issues the ability to make things explode with a punch of her fists?

But, even though she tried to use her powers for good and she even dutifully went along with Management's idiotic training schedules, she still never felt like a _hero_. And that's probably why she is in the situation that she's in right now.

"Listen, lads," Louis says sweetly, hands moving against the restraints that are clasped tightly behind her wrists. "While I would love to stay and chat, I do have things to tend to."

The man that's sitting across the cold, gray table in front of her blinks dispassionately, hand dropping the pen that's poised between his long fingers as he nods in a minuscule motion towards the man behind her. Louis sits up a bit straighter as she listens to the sound of footsteps behind her, preparing herself for whatever is bound to happen next. She's just about to swing her head backwards to hopefully connect with the person's stomach when there is a cold hand pressing a small rectangle against her neck.

A small shock zaps throughout her system and she cant help but lean forward and try to fold into herself in reaction to the pain. Someone in the dark room chuckles a bit when she starts to cough up blood, and Louis feels the familiar ripping sensation of anger tear through her veins. She forces herself to fight through the pain from the electrocution so that she can force herself to look up and directly into the brown eyes of the man in front of her. She harnesses all of her anger into one, central part of her body and brings up her leg. She stomps down on the ground, expecting for the usual sensation of an explosion reverberating from the force of the contact while she uses it to shoot herself upwards, but nothing happens. Instead, the only result is the awkward sound of her worn combat boots stomping against the uneven cement flooring and the sound of the same douchesicle laughing at her.

Louis turns to look at the small man that's shrouded in the darkness of the room's small corner, "Listen, bucko, I will gladly rip off your small prick and make you choke on it if you laugh at me one more fucking time." she warns.

"It's no use, Tomlinson," the man at the table says. "That small nanochip that we have placed on your neck will temporarily cease you from utilizing your powers until we remove it."

"Oh, _that's_ a dick move, mate. Not only did you have to kidnap my team and put us in handcuffs, but now you're not letting me use my powers? Cmon, at least let me have a _little_ bit of dignity."

The man crosses his arms over his chest, leaning back against his chair while a small smile plays over his lips. "We will let you use your powers as soon as you explain to us."

"Explain what?" Louis asks, feigning idiocy, even though she knows what they want. Hell, she knows what _everyone_ wants to know from her team right now.  
But that doesn't mean that she'll give up all of the information easily.

"Don't pull that shit with me, Tomlinson. Everyone here is already done with your wild antics."

Louis grins at that, knowing what the man is hinting at. As soon as she was apprehended, Louis kicked some woman in the jugular and began to make a run for the nearest exit. Of course, she was caught, seeing as she wasn't at her physical prime (being shot in the arse can really hinder one's physical performance, you know) and then she was shoved into this room. A woman had came in a few minutes later, asking if she felt up for 'talking' about what happened yesterday, and then Louis, for some reason, decided to make the doe-eyed, ginger woman named Clara, be a victim to her unrelenting sass. According to the small clock on the table, it only took twelve minutes until Louis sent the woman out with tears in her eyes and trembling hands. It was seven minutes later when an onslaught of men paced into the room and began to stare domineeringly at her. And now she's here, seventeen minutes into an awkward stare-down with a man that has a stereotypical scar across his eye and seemingly no patience for her shit.

"Fine, where do you want me to start?" Louis asks, crossing her legs beneath the table, because whatever her current hairstyle might imply: she is a _lady_ , dammit.

"I want you to start from the beginning."

"Oh -- _wait._ Do you mean the _beginning_ beginning? Like my origin story?"

"Tomlinson," he thunders warningly.

"Sorry, I'm just surprised because today's society hardly ever has the time for a female's origin story." Louis rolls her eyes for dramatic effect before leaning as far forward as she can with her hands shackled against the small of her back. "Well, it all began on a dreary Christmas Eve."

The man stares at her blankly, nodding for her to continue.

"My mother, an escort that was at the height of her career at the time, was laying on the bed of a dingy, underground hospital, writhing in pain as she brought to earth her first born daughter. She told me about that day, and she digressed to me about the number of men that were anxiously waiting outside of the room. She always laughs when she thinks about how her doctor had to pull a Maury to about twelve men that day."

The pluckier, brave man in the corner has the nads to speak up and ask, "What in the bloody hell is a Maury?"

Louis turns in her seat, forgetting the fuming man that's on the other side of the table to stare at the man.

"You know, pulling a Maury is when someone goes:" -- she clears her throat and yells boisterously -- " _You are not the father!_ "

A massive _bang_ grouped with the table falling into shambles on top of her legs quickly shuts her up, she looks over to see the man -- fuck, she really should've listened when he told her his name -- visibly seething with his closed fist poised over where the middle of the steel table _used_ to be and a few droplets of sweat forming on his balding head. Louis turns to sit properly in her chair, smiling pleasantly as he heaves with the force of his anger.

"If you do not cooperate and tell us your perception of the story, then I will have one of my associates strap you down and  extract the memories from that mental asylum that you call a brain," he yells.

Louis whistles under her breath, "Damn." He visibly trembles with agitation, and Louis decides to comply with his demands so that she won't end up in shambles like the former table. "Fine, what do you want to know?"

He sits down and leans over to sift through the rubble until he produces his notebook and pen. "Begin from when you first recognized your abilities."

Louis stares at him, vainly trying to tamp down her urge to lie to the man. She doesn't want to tell him this story; he won't _understand_ why they did what they did. She begins to think about a tale that she could spin that would make her team seem like they were completely innocent, but her mind is suddenly invaded with a voice that sounds eerily like Harry's that is urging her to tell the truth.

"Fine," Louis murmurs. "As you all know, because I am sure you've already read my file, I was a cancer patient. My mum had enough money to pay off a doctor to do an unorthodox treatment that was reliant off of making me vulnerable to insane amounts of radiation. I lost my hair and was in treatment for years, but I survived. I was only a month into remission and I was walking back to my flat when a boy shoved me into an alleyway and tried to take advantage of me."

She swallows nervously at that, trying to force away the memories of the boy's forceful hands and the way his humid breath hit her neck as he whispered that she had the hair of a boy so he was going to give her what she wants and fuck her like one. She still remembers the way that he forced her face to smack against the chipped brick wall that encased the dark alleyway and how angry she felt. She was a fucking _cancer  patient_ and this rich boy that didn't even belong in that side of town would've probably walked away untouched if he actually _did_ get to rape her. The entire memory still hurts her, still makes her mind swim with red-hot anger that crashes over her in waves, but that happening was also the beginning of Louis becoming one of the most jaded superheroes to ever grace the planet.

"And, as I'm sure you know, I decided to defend myself. I'm a girl that grew up on the wrong side of the tracks and I was well-aware of how to fight dirty. I fostered all of my anger into one, solid punch to his balls. I expected him to just fall down and start to cry like the little bitch he was, but instead, there was an explosion. I was confused, of course, I had no idea what just happened. So I ran."

Louis shrugs her shoulders, "Two days later, a woman in a hideous green pantsuit knocked on my door and told me to follow her. I refused, and then she sat me down and told me that I had superpowers. I laughed in her face, called her an idiot, but then she told me to punch her as hard as I could. I ended up blowing up my flat with the punch, but I didn't have to worry about my landlord getting on my arse about it, because the woman was taking me to Cowell's Home for Wayward Girls, or, as I've came to call it: _hell_."

** THE LACKLUSTER (AND ADMITTEDLY CLICHE) BEGINNING:  **

Louis swallows over the fresh round of nerves building in her throat, smoothing her hands over her ill-fitting trousers as she stands in front of the ominous looking mahogany doors that separates her from normalcy and this weird, diverse world that is filled with aimless mutant girls that are supposedly 'just like her'. She can already hear the tinkling, girlish laughter forcing it's way into her ears from behind the door and has to fight the urge to smash her face against the ornate columns that hold up the stupidly fancy porch until she's unconscious. Louis _hates_ teenage girls, and now she is about to be trapped in a mansion with nearly a hundred of them for the next few months. She solemnly vows to herself that if _any_ of these teenage mutant fembots tries to braid her hair then she will scream at the top of her lungs until they take her to an asylum where she'll probably be way more at peace. Her mum did always tell her that she was meant for the loony bin.

"Come on, Louis, I'll take you to your room," a voice comes from beside her.

She looks over to eye the woman that persuaded her to even come here in the first place. She seems alright enough, with her long, icy-blue hair and thin lips that are always pulled into a dimpled smile, and if they met in a different way then Louis would have _definitely_ tried to shag her. But, instead, she is just some super-serious young woman that goes by the name Ultra (And, really, what in the fuck kind of name is that? The only good thing that includes the word _ultra_ is an ultra absorbent tampon, and Louis highly doubts that that is this girl's power; but who is she to judge? When Louis gets angry she makes her own fucking body _explode_.) and is supposed to be Louis' superhero guru or something. (She didn't really listen to Ultra's long-as-hell monologue about why Louis needed to come to this place with her. She essentially zoned out and decided to agree to go along with the whole shebang once she heard that she could stay in a mansion and would get free food and hospital treatment for her remission as a result of it.)

"Is it too late to change my mind?" Louis asks, letting her mouth settle into a small scowl when she detects what sounds like some nauseating pop song from somewhere inside the building.

Ultra shoulders past her, raising a manicured hand to knock on the door with two, solid thumps. "Yes, it is."

The door opens mere seconds later to reveal a petite girl with green skin and massive purple eyes. Louis smiles to herself, the girl looks like a female Shrek (without the weird ears, of course). She stares at Louis blankly for a moment before gazing over at Ultra and beaming a smile towards her. Which, is, you know, _rude_. Just because Louis doesn't have that pretty-girl look going for her doesn't mean that she suddenly doesn't exist and isn't deserving a greeting of any kind.

"Hey, Ultra!" Fem-Shrek greets warmly. "Who's the stray?"

"This is the last recruit for the Direction Project," Ultra explains, pushing Louis forward so that they both enter the mansion. The place smells like old lady soap. "She doesn't have an alias yet."

"Oh, that's sick." Fem-Shrek looks directly at Louis, giving her an odd look. "Nice hair," she compliments.

Louis opens her mouth, aiming to ask her if her friend Donkey is anywhere close, but Ultra is already gripping her arm and dragging her towards the stupidly massive staircase that takes up most of the space in the entry hall. She takes the time to assess her surroundings as Ultra begins to manhandle her up the carpeted steps; they were only in the entry hall for a few seconds, but it was long enough for her to realize that the motherfucking mansion is decorated in less of an overzealous Christian Grey kind of way, but more so like a ninety year old woman with too much money and hardly any creativity was in charge of the interior. There's an overabundance of dark mahoganies and velvet drapery, and Louis doesn't miss the massive portrait of some old looking bloke that is smiling like there's an twelve inch dildo shoved up his arse. It looks a bit like the mansion that's the setting for that shitty Eddie Murphy 'scary but still family appropriate' film that Louis' little sister always made her watch when Halloween neared. Poor decoration choices aside, it's still the most expensive building that she has ever stepped foot into, and she halfway wishes that Ultra wasn't walking so quickly because she is a curious twat that wants to know what the other rooms look like.

"As you're aware, there are several girls that we have here. But, you will only be training and living with four other mutants, seeing as you've been selected to be a part of our project." Ultra explains and stops at the landing, dragging Louis towards the elevator and pressing the down button. Louis furrows her eyebrows but doesn't comment on how counterproductive the action seems. "We have been compiling mutants that share promising personalities and powers that can complement each other if they were sent on missions. The other three girls have known each other for a considerable amount of time, but I'm sure that they will welcome you immediately."

The elevator slides open to reveal an empty interior. Louis steps inside and watches as Ultra presses the basement floor button with one hand and uses the other to tie her hair up with an elastic.

"You said something earlier about an alias," Louis says. "Is there some weird thing here about not calling one another by their real names?"

"Well, we like to keep essential information about our mutants private in order to keep a steady fourth wall between the superhero self and the civilian self. Your teammates will more than likely ask you to address them by their real names, but while on missions and in public, it is crucial that you only use aliases. Have you taken the time to choose one for yourself, yet?"

Louis leans against the elevator, crossing her arms over her chest as she lets her mind drift into thought. A small smile itches her lips, "What about Resting Bitch Face?"

Ultra snorts, "Maybe you should give your alias more thought."

"Fresh Prince of Belair?" Louis tries again before she snaps her fingers. "Oh, I got it. _Trojan:_ because protection is my forte _._ "

Ultra shakes her head, "For now we'll just announce you as Blaze -- do not make a marijuana-related joke, kid. I _will_ give you hell during your next training session if you do."

Louis laughs, anyways, imaging herself sparking explosions with her fists while a cape that has ' _420_ ' emblazoned on the back flutters behind her.

"Wait, training session? _You_ are going to be the one that teaches me to fight?"

"Of course I am," Ultra nods, hair falling behind her back in waves. Louis remembers when her hair used to do that. "I have a healing factor and super strength, I am the best person to whip mutants into shape."

Louis shrugs, "Alright then."

She wonders if it would be wildly inappropriate to ask Ultra if she wouldn't mind if _Louis_ was the one doing the whipping instead, but she quickly decides against it. Her mum has always told her that there's a certain amount of time that has to pass between two strangers before a BDSM joke can be made. Ultra leads her to yet another mahogany door and presses her hand against the scanner that's there in place of a door knob. Louis watches as she punches in the code to open the door, eyebrows pulling together in confusion.

"Are you keeping me in some weird, high-tech sex dungeon?" Louis asks. "If so, my safe word is ' _do it again_.'"

Ultra lets out a dry laugh as the door opens, "I'm sure you'd like that, wouldn't you? But, no. We keep your living quarters under lockdown so that in the case of an invasion, it would be impossible for an intruder to locate and try to hurt you."

"So are we, like, never going to interact with anyone else?"

Ultra begins to walk through the entry hall, signaling for Louis to follow her. The place is decorated in a stark contrast to upstairs. It's all bleak, grey walls paired with harsh fluorescent lights that makes Louis believe that she just signed a contract to keep herself in a maximum security prison for a few months. _Fuck_. She should've said no and spent her remission working for that fucking sadist Miss Twat (yes, there is an actual woman that has the last name Twat and, believe it or not, she owns a sex shop) again, at least then she could've been able to spend her time with the only type of fake dicks that she does enjoy.

"You're allowed to leave your quarters during your free time, and I will enter your name into the system so you'll be able to come in without having someone else scan for you. But I doubt that you'll have much time for socializing with the mutants that aren't a part of your team."

Louis nods, "Solid."

They walk past nearly a thousand doors before Ultra stops in front of a red one. _Well, that seems promising -- red is always an innocent color_. Ultra looks at her, smiling in a way that shows the trace of dimples embedded in her cheeks, and then opens the door.

The first thing that Louis is struck with is the overpowering smell of pasta and garlic, and then the next thing is the site of a levitated spoon zipping right past her face in full force. She takes a cautious step backwards, shooting Ultra a worried look, but the older girl seems completely nonplussed, gripping the spoon and sashaying further into the place that looks more like a flat than a small room. Louis swallows, eying the eccentric decor of the entry hall around her, before quickly racing to catch up with Ultra.

They pass by a few framed photos of trees and constellations, which, _weird_ , before they enter a massive kitchen with three girls sprawled about it. There's one girl with wild, blonde hair leaning over the counter with her fingers deep into a salad bowl, and another one with black hair that's sitting cross-legged on the counter, chatting with a tall, curly-haired girl that's stirring a pot of boiling pasta.

"Girls," Ultra clears her throat. "I've found your last addition to the team."

With that, everyone turns to stare at Louis. The blonde slowly takes a handful of croutons and shoves it in her mouth while slowly assessing Louis.

"This is Blaze, she just presented her powers less than a week ago. I wanted to introduce her to you before taking her to training," Ultra explains.

It's awkwardly silent for a few moments, aside from the obnoxious _crunch_ of the blonde devouring her croutons. Louis shifts on her feet awkwardly, smiling at the blonde before gazing at the other two girls. The taller one seems to have turned off the oven and has moved to stand directly in front of Louis, and the other one that looks suspiciously like a goddess is still lounging on the counter, back pressed against a glass cabinet languidly and shiny hair falling over her skinny shoulders.

Louis represses the urge to roll her eyes; _of course_ the first all female superhero group had to be constructed of girls that are Britain's Next Top Models in training. She decides during that moment if their uniforms expose their midriffs or tits in anyway then she is quitting this stereotypical sexist squad.

"Hello," the one in front of Louis greets warmly. "I am the EcoWarrior, she's Thought --"

"I'm sorry, what?" Louis asks, letting out a small laugh. "Your name is _Thought?_ " she asks the goddess on the counter.

Super Beautiful Yet Badly Named Woman nods.

Louis laughs, "Well, that's unfortunate.. Because, you know, it sounds like _thot_."

"What?"

"You know, the acronym for 'that hoe over there.'" Louis explains. " _Please_ tell me that that isn't your actual name."

The goddess sniffs, "It's a work in progress."

"And I'm Time Bender. Its also subject to change, I think I might want to be called the Shamrock again," the blonde says in a thick, Irish accent. "I can't believe that we've had two additions to our team in the span of a week! It was a year before Za -- I mean _Thought_ joined after me."

"We have another teammate, but she's in training at the moment," EcoWarrior explains. "Do you want to eat dinner with us?"

"I'm sure she would love to," Ultra cuts in. "But I have to screen her abilities."

Curly nods, and Louis takes the time to actually look at her now that she isn't facing away from Louis. She has wide, green-as-freshly-cut-grass eyes, stupidly plump lips that have taken the shape of a dazzling, dimpled smile, and small, randoms flowers nestled into her wild curls. She holds out her hand for Louis to shake, and she does so slowly.

"Welcome to the team, Blaze," EcoWarrior says.

Louis nods, forcing herself to look away from her overly earnest eyes and at the other two girls that are now flanking Curly's side. It's in that moment that Louis' (admittedly not that bright) mind makes the connection that EcoWarrior is _definitely_ their leader. It's obvious in the way that she holds herself, shoulders stiff and a glint in her eyes that can easily be compared to Regina George's ' _I am going to act pleasant to your face but I'm mentally trying to find all of your weaknesses._ ' Louis respects any type of hardarsed fit girl, but she's not quite in the mood for the Infamous Mean Girls Inquisition or the words that the trio is more than likely going to hurl at her back.

"Thanks, man." Louis says, holding her hand out for a fist bump.

EcoWarrior takes a quick pivot backwards, eying Louis distrustfully like she was about to take a bloody _swing_ at her or something, and that's when she decides that she definitely does not like Curly. Ultra, thankfully, takes that as her cue to once again grip Louis' arm and drag her away from the kitchen and the awkward tension that lays heavy inside of it.  
. . .

Louis leans over, pressing her hands against her bare knees and wheezing out hot air through her lips. Her ribs are on fucking _fire_ from the kick that Ultra just aimed at her and she is one thousand percent sure that she is going to die right here, in the middle of some ugly as hell training room that has motivational quotes written on the wall of mirrors.

"How in the _fuck_ ," Louis wheezes, falling forward onto the blue mat dramatically before turning on her back to eye Ultra, "did you get that strong? And don't feed me any of that 'I grew up with five brothers and they taught me everything I know' sexist bullshit because I ain't here for that."

Ultra holds out her hand to help Louis back up, which she begrudgingly takes. Ultra looks absolutely fucking stellar, with not a single blue hair out of place and her cheeks are still the perfect shade of red even though she has spent the last hour pummeling Louis into the oblivion. Which, kind of pisses Louis off because she thought that she'd be _good_ at this. She grew up in the rougher bits of London and has had her fair share of scraps in the dark alleyways -- and for fucks sake she can make motherfucking _explosions_ so she should've been able to at least give Ultra a fair run for her money. Instead, Louis and her stupid, cancer-remissioned body can't even throw a punch that would bruise a toddler.

"Super strength, remember?" Ultra explains easily, brushing off Louis' shoulders before taking a step back. "Also, you've annoyed me a bit over the past week, so I'm taking out a bit of my aggression on you, sorry."

She brushes off the annoying comment because, honestly, she's well-aware that she's not the type of girl that others would want to braid hair with. She's a bit outspoken and has a bad habit of never thinking before she says things. Typically, the more time that she spends with people, the more that they want her to get the fuck away. That's probably why her mum pawned her off as quickly as she could once she had the chance.

"I know, but I thought that I would've gotten at least _one_ punch in," Louis defends. "I am supposed to be good at fighting."

Ultra pauses from where she was taking a fighting stance, confusion clearly clouding over her face. And then she stands up straight and eyes Louis critically.

"You're right. Our research said that you had a history of fighting and would be the most promising addition when it comes to hand-to-hand combat," Ultra looks at Louis, eyes flashing with worry. "Do you think that it's your cancer?"

"Hey, I think that _I'm_ the only one that gets to pull the cancer card, here," Louis snarks quickly before actually pausing to mull it over. "But you're probably right. The doctor did say some shit about the radiation fucking up with my body's normal functions. I just thought that my only side effect was the stereotypical explosions coming from my fists, though."

"Perhaps you're a bit slower due to the radiation," Ultra thinks aloud, totally ignoring high quality humorous content. "We should definitely have Ed check you out."

"Sorry, but I'm only into the pussy persuasion."

Ultra's eyes flash with anger and suddenly there's a fist connecting to her face with enough force that it makes her body fly backwards for a few, completely terrifying seconds.

"What the fuck, mate?" Louis asks, reaching down to wipe the sweat that's formed on her cheeks with the unfortunate wife-beater that Ultra had her put her on before they began to train.

"Sorry," Ultra shrugs. "I guess I slipped or something. Anyways, I should probably just have you work with the cinderblocks for now while I take notes on how you utilize your powers."

Louis helps herself up, adjusting the waist band of the oversized basketball shorts that she also was given to change into before walking towards the opposite side of the massive training room. There are about fifteen massive cinderblocks suspended from a pole that outstretches from a wall that weirdly enough also houses a bunch of potted plants. She can feel Ultra watching her intently as she stands in front of one cinderblock, but she brushes off the awkward feeling that overruns her because of it.

She closes her eyes and pulls her elbow back, hand forming a fist and inhaling sharply before she hurls herself forward with the force of her punch.

"Mother _fuck_ ," Louis screams bending down to cradle her fist. "Fuck the Queen with a fucking ruler I broke my motherfucking hand. _Fuck_."

"That didn't work like how I expected," Ultra says from behind her.

Louis stands, cradling her fist against her stomach, "Yeah, no fucking _shit_."

And it's probably a testament to how fucking _stupid_ Louis gets when she's angry, because she goes straight back to the same cinderblock and punches the fuck out of it with the same hand that she just practically shattered.

But this time, it flares with a wicked explosion as soon as her hand connects with the rough cement. Which, you know, is very fucking satisfying.

"Now do it again," Ultra demands.

Louis turns, giving her a wild look. "I just broke my fucking _hand_."

"Work through the pain and improvise. That's what true heroes do."

"In case you haven't noticed, I" -- Louis waves her totally-intact hand dramatically over her body -- "am not at all a true hero. I'm just your residential fuck-up that has the exact type of rare power that you needed for your ragtag girl band."

"You'll never be a true hero with that attitude."

Louis barks out a dry laugh, "That's disgustingly cliche. But, I'm serious. I am tired and my post-cancer body will revolt if I have to do anything else other than sit on my massive arse for the rest of the day."

"Fine," Ultra sighs. "You remember the way back to living quarters, right?"

Louis nods.

"Great. Head back there and have Eco show you to your room. You can shower and change there." Ultra is halfway out of the door before she turns back around to look at Louis. "I'll talk to Ed about giving you medical treatment for that cancer thing. You'll hear from him in the next hour."

With one last dimpled smile and a flip of her vibrant hair, Ultra is gone. Louis looks at the mirrored wall, catching a quick glimpse of her red cheeks and smudged mascara and sighs, sliding a hand over her incredibly short hair. She's glad that she's not rocking the cue-ball look like how she was a few months ago, but she does miss her longer hair and would die to have it over the idiotic buzzcut that she has now. Her skin has long lost its old, deep tan that she used to have before the entire cancer thing happened, and she can't help but feel like she's incredibly inadequate compared to the other girls on the team.

The lights of the training room turn off and that's a bit too bloody metaphoric for what she feels like right now, isn't it?

She meanders back through the hallway and stops at the red door, inhaling deeply before opening it with her good hand. The smell of pasta is long gone and nobody is in the kitchen anymore. She wanders aimlessly, listening for any sounds that could tell her where someone else might be before she ends up in a massive living room.

There's another girl with them now, sitting between the blonde and the goddess and tying her long, brown hair up into a pony tail that rests on the top of her head. The massive flatscreen television is turned on to _Bob's Burgers_ and they're all murmuring quietly to one another, but their voices are hidden under Tina's verbal obsession over that one dude's arse.

"Hey," Louis says awkwardly. "I was told to come back here."

They all turn around to look at Louis, half of the profiles illuminated by the blue light of the telly, making them seem a bit softer and approachable, but also a little creepy, as well. The blonde smiles kindly and signals for Louis to take a seat on the couch beside them while EcoWarrior moves to turn off the television.

"How did training go?" Curly asks.

Louis looks down at her hand that's already starting to bruise around her knuckles, "It went."

"Are you okay with sharing your real name with us?" Thought asks. "Because I'm sorry, but I can't take you seriously if I have to call you Blaze the whole time."

"Oh for fuck's sakes, _please_ don't call me by that. Ultra just pulled it out of her hot arse and I went with it. My name is Louis."

"I'm Harry," Curly speaks up first. "This is Niall, Zayn, and Liam. Liam and Zayn share a room, and I will be sharing a room with you. Niall has her own room because she snores, but we still spend most of our time together besides for when we sleep. Did you bring any clothes?"

"I, ah," Louis rubs at the nape of her neck awkwardly. "I only have what I came here with."

"Oh, that's okay! I can loan you some of my clothes for the time being, I'm sure that they'll provide you with some clothes sooner or later." Harry smiles pleasantly at Louis, and for some reason it just makes her feel uneasy.

She moves to sit down on the couch, forcing herself to mimic the charitable smile that all of the girls are shooting at her. Everything just feels weird and foreign, and Louis would do _anything_ to just be able to lay down and digest the clusterfuck of a culture shock that she's had today. Or, at least, she wants to binge eat some cookies in bed and then fall asleep from a sugar-induced coma.

"So, what's your power?" the newest girl, Liam, asks.

"I, uhm, make stuff explode. There's probably a fancy term for it, but I've never taken the time to learn it." Louis shrugs and relaxes against the couch, running her thumb tenderly over her bruised knuckles. "What about you guys?"

"Harry manipulates nature, Zayn can read and manipulate thoughts, Niall teleports, and I..." Liam makes an awkward sound. "have no idea what my power is, but they said I should present soon."

"I bet it will be something epic, Li," Harry says kindly, and Louis tries to not roll her eyes.

"Thanks, H," Liam leans forward to look at Louis directly once again. "So, how did you find out your power?"

Louis shrugs, "It just happened."

And maybe it's probably not all that wise to start off this entire team bonding thing by withholding information, but she doesn't really _want_ to tell these girls her sob-story. There's nothing that's particularly badass about being a cancer patient that went terribly wrong and was felt up by some entitled rich arsehole, and she doesn't really know these girls enough to allow them to see anything that can be misconstrued as a weakness about her.

"We've actually never really talked about how we've all presented before," Zayn enters the conversation slyly. "Maybe we should? I mean, it'll make us know each other better."

"While it seems mighty fun to trade our soppy origin stories," Louis jokes dryly. "I am tired as hell and probably won't be too invested in this unless there is at least one orphan child without a cause story in my midst. So, I'm going to find a shower and get all of Ultra's sweat off of me."

Louis stands up and leaves opening a random door and pausing just so that she can overhear one of the girls saying, "She's kind of a bitch."

And, well, she can't quite fight them on that.

\\\

Louis shifts in the plush, white chair that she's sitting on, raising up her hand to rub tiredly at her eyes. After her long shower, she was met with a ginger man standing just out of the loos that said his name was Ed and he wanted to talk about Louis' _current health state_ , which is something that Louis has learned over her few years of being a hardcore lung cancer patient, is code for 'let's talk about your body and how it's not normal'.

Upon entering some all-white medical looking room, Ed immediately handed her a hospital gown that she could trade for her towel and then began to hook her up to a bunch of machines. He then started to talk (mostly to himself) about random things like her oxygen levels and shit. Meanwhile, Louis has watched the digital clock in the corner of the room intently as the hours slowly dragged until it was well-past midnight.

"The good news is that you don't have cancer," Ed says, thin lips stretched into a toothy smile.

" _Yaay_ ," Louis chimes sarcastically. "I hear that that thing could be quite a nuisance, you know."

Ed laughs and holds out his hand for a fist bump, and she easily complies.

"On a serious note, you have had intense radiation submitted to your body, and it has caused for your reaction-times and body movement to be much slower than you're used to," Ed explains. "It's extremely common, you know. Also, if you notice that your brain activity is significantly slower than usual when it comes to social interaction or judgement, please tell me. That is another side effect of cancer treatment, as well."

Louis shrugs, "I've never had a brain-to-mouth filter, anyways, so there's no great loss there. Will I ever be able to.. you know, fight effectively without having to use explosions?"

"With enough physical therapy, yes. You need to go about it in baby steps, though. You're basically training your brain to work as effectively as it used to all over again. It really sucks that you have to deal with this on top of the whole entire superhero thing, but I'm sure that you can figure it out."

"You have a lot of faith in me, Eddie boy," Louis hums. "So does this mean that you're going to be my cancer remission buddy?"

Ed nods and laughs, "Sure. There are some clothes over there, you can change into them and head back to your quarters once I'm gone. I'll see you soon."

Louis nods and waves at Ed with her good hand (the one that she fucked up is now wrapped in a bandage thanks to Ed) before he leaves. She then forces herself out of the chair and grabs the sweats that are folded pristinely on a counter and slips them on after she takes off the hospital gown, forcing herself to not wonder how the people managed to figure out her exact bra size.

She walks back to the stupid fucking red door, opening it up and shutting it quietly behind her. The lights are off in every room except for one at the very end of the hallway, so she automatically begins to barge in but stops when she overhears someone saying her name.

"I just don't get why she acts like that," Liam says, voice deep and languid and obviously sneering. "It seems like she hates us already and she hasn't even taken the time to get to know us."

"Maybe she's just shy?" Harry offers, and Louis decides to stop and lean against the doorframe. "Or she's afraid of leaving a bad impression with us. It's hard to meet so many people at once, especially if you know that you'll be spending the rest of your life with them."

"Well, she needs to figure out how to not be a total prick. That orphan comment was totally uncalled for," Liam says.

"Maybe you should ask Ultra how she feels about her, Harry," Niall's thick Irish accent breaks in. "She knows more about her than anyone else."

"I can do that, yeah.."

"She just wants attention," Liam interrupts, voice laced with anger. "She wants to feel like she's better than us, and she truly just wants to feel relevant have everyone talking about her -- which we _are_. I mean, why else would she have her hair cut like that? She wants everyone to focus on her."

 _What the fuck_ , Louis thinks, clutching her good hand and mentally listing the reasons why she shouldn't punch the fuck out of the wall. The girl has quite a bit of nerve, especially for someone with stupid eyebrows and doesn't even have any fucking clue what her power is, and usually Louis could brush off people talking shit about her because that's just what people _do,_ but she truly can't stand when people say ignorant shit based off of quick judgements about an appearance.

"So you like my hair?" Louis asks, walking into the room, which she quickly learns is actually a bedroom and is more than likely Niall's seeing as it only houses one bed. "That's awful sweet of you, Liam, truly. But it won't do you any good to flirt with me if I'm not in the room."

"I was not attempting to flirt with you," Liam says, standing suddenly from where she was sitting cross-legged on the bed.

"Then, in that case, keep my name out of your fucking mouth," Louis says, planting one of her hands on Liam's shoulder and pushing her backwards.

Zayn quickly stands and grabs Liam, who  jolts forward like she's about to swing at Louis, and Harry walks forward to stand between the two of them, towering over Louis a bit. Her green eyes are visibly showing a bit of worry and anger, and Louis almost wants to laugh manically at how openly expressive she is; the girl will obviously never win a game of poker in her life -- her expressions are so clearly broadcasted over her face that it's insane.

"Maybe I should show you to our room," Harry says, and that's when she realizes that she was probably being bitched at for the whole entire time that her mind was wandering off. "We all need some rest."

Louis nods, and Harry grips Louis' arm at the same exact spot that Ultra has been steering her by all day. They go to the closed door that is closest to the kitchen and Harry opens it to reveal a pretty decently sized bedroom. Half of it is bare, with only a bed and a armoire pressed against the wall, and the other half is decorated eccentrically with fairy lights and a few potted plants. It looks lived in and very homely, and it makes Louis wonder how long Harry has been staying in this weird place.

"Your bed is over there. Do you sleep with any light?" Harry asks, Louis shakes her head and pulls back the comforter, sliding into the bed and turning to face the wall. "Great, alright. I'll just turn it off, then."

Louis tucks her bottom lip between her teeth, listening as Harry turns off the light and adjusts in her own bed. It's awkwardly quiet for a few moments before Harry clears her throat delicately.

"Hey, uh, Louis?"

Louis makes a small sound in the back of her throat and listens as Harry shifts in her bed. There is the sound of blankets moving and a deep sigh, and then the obvious squeak of bed springs shifting under Harry as she more than likely props herself up on one hand.

"I'm sorry," she murmurs. "For what we said."

Louis swallows and shifts in her bed that smells oddly of lilac and laundry detergent, shoving her face in the pillow and sighs. She's oddly enough overcome with the urge to cry, she can feel it in the familiar way that her eyes begin to burn and her throat slowly begins to close in on itself. She's wanted to cry a lot over the past years, and usually she can pin down a certain reason as to why she feels the urge to cry like, cancer, or something. But, right now, she has no idea why she feels like her heart has just been stolen from her and shoved into a blender. It's probably just lack of sleep, she decides.

Or, maybe, it's the fact that she is sick of always having people apologize to her for petty stuff that even she can't bring herself to understand.

** PRESENT: **

"You're not saying anything to justify your team's actions," the man cuts her off angrily, kicking at the rubble where the table once stood. "Get on with _why_ you allowed for your team to act as reckless as they did."

" _Somebody_ is getting impatient, isn't he?" Louis lilts, relaxing against the back of her chair and smiling proudly as he fumes.

"I have no qualms with using force in order to make you comply with our simple commands, Tomlinson."

Louis shrugs, letting her eyes wander around the dark room for a moment before trying to break free from her stupid handcuffs once again. Of course, her valiant try at being a hero doesn't work, and she's pretty sure that the only reason why it _doesn't_ is because only the heroes that are all about saving puppies and _not_ making shit explode just to create an -- admittedly kickass -- action scene is able to have the Epic Escape Moments That Are Perfect For Dramatic Montages with some hardcore heavy metal music that always coincidentally plays in the background (her shade is _fully_ intended at a certain tin can, of course.)

The retched sound of a throat being dramatically cleared pulls her out of her reverie, and she feels a bit frightened when she realizes that the massive man is now standing on top of the warped metal of the former table and is staring Louis down over the bridge of his nose that has probably been broken at least twice in the past by the looks of it. If her legs weren't shackled to the ground, she could've easily used his position to give him a swift kneecap to the balls, but the woes of being incarcerated makes _that_ feat completely impossible, too. The only thing that she _can_ do without her powers or any way to use her limbs is to lament about how the struggle is incredibly real.

"You're quite pushy, you know," Louis tells him, humming disapprovingly under her breath. "And it's totally uncalled for, seeing as we are fucking _innocent._ If you all knew what was happening, then you would be interrogating the people that you're trying to help defend. I am starting to get quite sick of your bullshit, mate."

In one, blinding moment, the man's hand moves from where it was clenched at his waist to clutch around her neck, grasping at the tender flesh there hard enough until she feels her lungs constricting. Louis stares at him, eyes wild and mouth stupidly panting for air that she fully knows she won't be able to inhale, watching as the son of a bitch fucking _smiles_ down at her sardonically. She struggles against the restraints, wrists and ankles bruising against the unyielding metal, until he finally lets go.

"Mother _fucker_ ," Louis bites through the ragged air that she pulls through her lips. "You're not playing fair."

"You of all people, Tomlinson, should be well-aware of the fact that this isn't some childish _game._ Lives were lost because of you all."

"Lives were _saved,_ " she yells, anger swelling in her chest. "Instead of there being two thousand casualties there were only _two_. Listen, Asshat -- is it okay if I call you Asshat?" The man opens his mouth to probably attempt to rip Louis a new arsehole, but she glares at him and raises her voice over his subsequent bitching. "-- anyways, Asshat. I have a feeling that if my team just so happened to be composed of only males, then this would've all been swept under the rug with the lighthearted notion that _boys will be boys_. But since we are all female, then obviously it's assumed that there was some idiotic, malicious intent that _has_ to be investigated because _surely_ girls can't sight a flaw in a concept that's much too big for their small, girlish minds to comprehend. Obviously there _has_ to be something evil going on with the _heroes_."

"This does not have anything to do with gender," Asshat cuts her off angrily.

" _Please_ , this superhero environment is incredibly sexist -- _and_ racist, seriously, it's like the entire industry is stuck in the fifties -- this has _everything_ to do with gender."

"You're starting to piss me off," Asshat mumbles. "Just _tell_ me why I should believe that your team is innocent and then we will both be out of each other's hair."

"What happened to the torture that you promised me?" Louis asks, voice lowering dangerously. "Did you realize that we needed some kink negotiation first?"

Asshat yanks back his massive hand and pushes all of his weight into the force of an open-palmed slap that lands across her cheek with a resounding _thwack_. Pain bursts through her cheek, the hit was hard enough that if he would've hit her like this months ago she probably would've passed out from the sudden force. Instead, she just works her jaw for a moment, trying to regain feeling in her left cheek before she slowly turns to face him. She can hardly make out the sweat trickling over his shining forehead through the hair that has fallen over her eyes, but she can definitely note the unadulterated _rage_ that's emanating from him as he grits his teeth. Louis mentally adds the fact that if Zayn were here, she'd probably be nearly sick with the feelings that she could detect from this douchestick of a man to the small list of reasons why she's happy she has been stuck with this violent man instead of the other girls as she forces herself to sit up a bit straighter.

She feels a bit like the stereotypical damsel in distress from one of Lottie's stupid romance-action movies, with the way that she's strapped to this _stupid_ fucking chair, but she knows that to be a damsel in distress, that means that someone would have to actually _want_ to save her, which is _highly_ unlikely seeing as no one even wanted to stay with her when she was diagnosed with cancer. Aiding and abetting a supposed hero-gone-wrong is definitely _not_ something that her loved ones from her old life would have wanted to get involved in.

Asshat raises his hand, a silent threat that he won't mind to hit her again, as he spits out one, menacing word: " _Explain_."

And, she really has no choice but to listen to someone for once.

** YET ANOTHER BLAST TO THE FUCKING PAST:  **

Louis wakes up and groggily opens her eyes to stare directly into the ironically green-as-freshly-cut-grass eyes of Eco. It takes a few moments for her slow, cancer-addled mind to remember where she is and that it is most definitely _weird_ to wake up to a near stranger hovering inches over her face. Eco's eyes widen comically, before squinting into a (stupidly adorable and very annoying) shape that means that there is more than likely a radiant smile being aimed at her during what has to be a satanic hour of the morning. Louis watches as Eco scrambles backwards, slowly moving her own legs to curl up against her chest as a weight settles on the end of her bed.

She turns over and presses her face into the starched pillowcase to muffle her groan, "Why are you so weird?"

"It's _spring_ ," Eco thrums excitedly.

"Wow, stellar observation, ten out of ten points for being a regular genius." Louis pulls her comforter over her face, squinting her eyes shut. "I surely couldn't have figured that out on my own by taking a glance at the calendar, or, I don't know, looking outside of the window at the blossoming trees?"

"It's spring," Eco says again, voice still syrupy slow and stupidly giddy. "And that means that we can do our morning training _outside_."

"Morning training," Louis echoes. "Does this mean that you all are expecting me to engage in physical activity in the fucking _morning_? I'm sorry, I didn't know that I willingly signed up to chill in the seventh layer of hell."

"Cmon, Lou, you have to wake up. Its our first session working as a complete team! It will really help us bond together, it'll be amazing."

"That sounds horrible," Louis says, holding her comforter tighter as Eco begins to pull at it. "I would rather have sex with a knife."

Eco stays eerily quiet for a moment, and then the hands that were yanking at her comforter leave altogether. Louis takes that as a sign that the curly haired devil has finally decided to call it a quits, but she's quickly proven wrong when a massive gust of wind whips the blanket off of Louis. She jerks up in the bed, eyes narrowing at the taller girl that's giggling idiotically at her, cheeks tinted a rosy red and curly hair matted on one side from sleep, and starts to reach for the blanket once more. She's stopped, though, by vines -- _where in the fuck did Eco get vines to manipulate in their room?_ \-- twining around her wrists and forcing her to lay down fully on her bed, rendering her hands useless.

"I'll have you know, that when it comes to bondage, I am _not_ the one that gets tied up," Louis snarks, and Eco easily waves her off.

"Ultra told me that I had to take all measures necessary to have you ready before six." Eco says, stupid smile still permanently etched on her lips. "Do you always sleep without pants?"

Louis spares a quick glance down at her legs, mentally grateful that she's not wearing any embarrassingly printed underwear, "You should consider yourself lucky that I chose to keep on my underwear last night."

Eco raises one eyebrow, eyes lingering on Louis' legs for a moment before she pivots on her foot and begins to walk towards the double-doors of a closet that Louis didn't take the time to note last nigh. She watches for a moment, hands suspended uselessly over her head, as Eco sheds the oversized shirt that she was wearing to reveal a smooth expanse of pale skin and a purple sports bra underneath. She closes her eyes letting the mantra of _don't perv out on your new roommate, don't be that cliche_ run through her mind relentlessly. Louis knows that it's best to not be an idiot about this, seeing as the last time she formed an attraction towards a roommate, it ended more horribly than one of John Green's novels. Eco is just an aesthetically pleasing girl, and she can't help but to look a little bit. It's completely normal. Louis clears her throat, and with a flick of Eco's massive hand, the vines slowly release her wrists. She takes the new freedom as an opportunity to force herself to look away and rub at the slightly raw skin there.

"What do you expect me to wear?" Louis asks, still staring at her wrists.

Some colorful, thin pieces of fabric falls neatly on her lap, and she picks them up to note that it's just some flimsy work-out gear that's decked out in annoyingly fluorescent colors. She scrunches her nose, lime green has _really_ never been her color, and she doubts that even Tim Gunn's favorite designer could make this dastardly thing work. A small laugh drags her attention back up towards Eco, who now has her wild curls pulled into a high pony tail. The taller girl nods towards Louis, dimples forming deep in her pale cheeks.

"The point of the clothes is to wear them," she explains.

Louis snarls, standing up from the bed and shoving her legs through the athletic shorts. The fabric is a bit tight on her arse, but she figures that she doesn't truly have much room to complain. She turns to face the wall, studiously ignoring the eyes that are still on her as she takes off her shirt and slides on the flimsy bro-tank over her chest instead. She slides her hand over her buzzed hair quickly before turning back to Eco, who is now leaned against the open doorframe, still openly starting at Louis.

"You're not as snarky as you were last night," Eco murmurs.

"Yeah, well. I am tired. My enigmatic wit does not make an appearance until noon, so you're going to have to wait for some proper entertainment."

Eco snorts out a quirky laugh, eyes brightening stupidly. "We should start to head out."

Louis looks at Eco's primly made bed and her own disheveled one and decides to leave it be, slipping on the tennis shoes that have somehow been set up proudly beside her bed during the time that she fell asleep before breezing past Eco and leaving the other to trail behind her. The lights in the wide hallway are still turned off, but she can see a brightness emanating from what she thinks is the blonde girl's bedroom. Eco is humming some idiotic tune under her breath that sounds oddly like _Baby's Got Back_ and the low thrum of the telly can be heard before Louis even walks past the den.

"Hey, Li?" Eco calls into the living room, resting a tentative hand on Louis' shoulder as she waits for the other girl to acknowledge her from where she's sat on the couch, eyes glued to the telly. "I am going to take Lou to the courtyard and show her a few places before everyone else gets out there. You'll tell Ultra, right?"

The girl nods, hands reaching up to mess with the loose bun that's settled on the crown of her head, "Do you want me to join you two?"

"That's smart," Louis interrupts. "Because you're never supposed to send the pretty girl with the tits to face the monster alone, right?"

Her mouth settles in a displeased line, "It's not okay for you to sexualize Harry like that."

"Someone is a bit jealous, isn't she?" Louis asks. "Don't worry, I have zero interest in any of you guys."

"Cmon, Lou," Eco says, hand clutching at her shirt and pulling her towards the door. "We should really hurry if you want to see the sunrise."

Eco holds tightly to her wrist, pulling her along as they weave through countless hallways and past several ominous looking doorways. She catches a glimpse of Ed's fiery hair walking in the opposite direction of them just before they take a sharp turn into another hallway and stop in front of an elevator. Eco drops her wrist and presses the up button.

"Don't call me Lou," Louis murmurs as they wait for the elevator to arrive.

Eco turns to look at her, eyes widening with worry like she's truly terrified that she hurt Louis' feelings, "Oh, I didn't know you would have something against it, I just figured that --"

"It's fine, don't apologize. Just, don't call me that. Please." Louis shrugs.

"Can I ask why?"

"It brings up some memories, is all," Louis shrugs again, taking a step into the elevator once it stops.

It's the same elevator that her and Ultra took to get here in the first place, and she watches as Eco presses her palm against the scanner before she pushes a button that's only marked with an ' _O_ ', worrying her lower lip between her teeth as she assesses Eco's profile.

The thing with the whole entire cancer event is that it really fucked her mind up. The whole entire sensation of the almost-dying and being abandoned by everyone that loves her entwined with the relentless rounds of chemotherapy and radiation has made her a bit (okay, a lot) jaded to this world. There a lot of things that she used to love -- like loud techno music and nicknames -- and now she completely abhors. Suddenly, her mind doesn't work as quickly as it used to and everything just feels like it's out to get her, and the longer she stays here, surrounded by these pretty girls that are disturbingly normal even though they're mutants, the more she believes that she's made a mistake by agreeing to stay.

"What're you thinking about?" Eco asks.

"Did you know that Benjamin Franklin didn't go to his only daughter's wedding?" Louis asks. "He went on a vacation to France, instead."

Eco stares blankly at her, mouth opened slightly.

"He didn't even want to pay for it," Louis keeps going, voice going higher as the elevator slowly crawls upwards. "He's kind of a dick, honestly. But the ladies loved him. What about you, would you bone Franklin?"

"You're trying to distract me," Eco says, mouth settling in a small pout.

"I'm taking that as a yes."

The elevator opens to reveal a sprawling, green lawn with primly cut trees and the kind of sunrise that girls from her school would cream themselves over while they posted countless pictures of it on their Instagram feeds. Eco stands close to her, just enough so that she can pick up the light scent of laundry detergent and oranges on her, and if Louis was a normally functioning lesbian, this would be the moment in which she gazes at her eyes and falls into a frenzy of angsty yet romantic feelings for this straight girl that all of the indie LGBT+ movies try to capture.

"You're weird," Eco states simply.

And that, folks, is why Louis has the heart equivalent to the Tin Man's in the Wizard of Oz.

"Would you believe me if I told you that you're not the first pretty girl to tell me that?" Louis bites sardonically, watching as Eco's cheeks tinge red from humiliation.

"I did _not_ mean to say it like that?" Eco says, voice hastening but still stuck at an annoying slow pace. "I just meant to say like, you're quirky. I _like_ that, I think it's cool. I think that... _you're_ cool."

"Listen, Eco --"

"Harry," she says. "Call me Harry."

" _Eco_ , you don't have to campaign to make me like you or try and wheedle your way into becoming my best friend so that we can braid friendship bracelets and make those annoying snapchat posts about how we're each other's A-one's since day one's. I am nobody's friend, and I _like_ that. So, don't, like, stress yourself out over impressing me, because, in all honesty, I have already decided that I don't have the time or emotional capacity to want to befriend _any_ of you guys. It's nothing personal."

Eco stares at her, stray curls that have forced their way out of her ponytail fluttering in the soft morning breeze and a vulnerable presence of hurt softening her bright eyes. Her smile has finally completely withered away, eroded down into nothing but a small puckered pout of pink lips and small lines where her dimples once were. Louis wishes that she could find something in herself to feel bad for her, but she really _really_ can't.

"It feels personal," Eco says somberly, and Louis swears that the nature around them depresses a bit along with her.

"Hey, you're early," Ultra's familiar, hyper brogue cuts into the awkward tension.

Louis turns, eying Ultra as she twines her blue hair into a loose braid that trails down the nape of her neck. She flits her eyes between the two of them, face souring like a prepubescent that learned what a period was for the first time.

"So, I see that you've gotten to know Blaze's personality," she directs at Eco. Which is, you know, _savage_ , but it's way too fucking early in the morning for her to give a shit. "Anyways, I want you all to run a quick two miles for a warm-up and then we'll get started with the training."

"I'm sorry, but it sounded like you just implied that I am going to run two miles." Louis balks, already feeling sweat trickle down her spine and she hasn't even done anything yet. "I can hardly even make it two laps around a hospital bed without heaving."

Ultra eyes her coldly, "You're going to at least _attempt_ to run the two miles, or I'll send you back to that matchbox you called a flat and you'll lose all of the luxuries that this school is offering you."

Louis looks over to notice that Eco is already sprinting around a well-paved track with her ponytail swaying in rhythm with each stride of her long legs. She doesn't even seem slightly terrified of the feat in front of her, and Louis can't help but start to believe that she's actually being _Punk'd_ and has been coerced to live in the same vicinity of super-fit robots that were specifically made to make her look like a dying animal to the naked eye by comparison.

"Blaze, you have to start running or else I'll send you home -- I'm serious."

"Did you know that your alias makes me think of tampons?" Louis asks, grimacing as she watches Harry round her second lap around the track. Ultra lets out a short, scoffing noise in supply. "Well, I just realized that it's incredibly fitting, seeing as you're absorbing the life out of me right now."

"Thats the worst joke you've made yet, Blaze. For that, you're getting a time limit. Have your first mile done in fifteen minutes or else I'm going to add another mile to your total."

Louis rolls her eyes and steps foot on the track, inhaling a steadying breath before beginning to jog along the ellipse with her middle finger raised high in the air for Ultra to admire.

**_//_ **

"Was it something that happened in your past?" Eco asks her an hour later, voice still light from where she was laughing with the blonde a bit earlier.

Louis squints up at her, the sun has risen treacherously high in the sky over the span of time that it took them to finish what Ultra called their warm-up and what Louis has came to call the seventh layer of hell, so it's pretty difficult to make out Eco's form through the outline of the sun. Her mind slowly tries to understand what Eco is saying, but she's honestly too focused on laying on the track and trying to regain her breath while lying in enough of her own sweat that she could probably fill a bathtub with. Louis has _never_ been one for physical exercise, she would much rather lay in her bed and share her time between wanking furiously to some artistic porn and binge eating Nutella while watching _Orange is the New Black_.

She feels like _death,_ her feet hurt and Eco's stupid shorts started chafing her thighs by the end of her first lap. The other girls joined them nearly twenty minutes after Louis began to run, easily breezing past her and lapping her in the same annoying way that Eco appeared to enjoy doing every two minutes. After the fifth time that they passed her, she had lowkey wanted to trip every single one of them.

"What're you talking about?" Louis asks.

"There has to be something that makes you want to block us all out. Was it something in your past?"

"That's a disturbingly private matter, Eco." Louis lays her head back on the sweltering track; she can already feel the beginnings of a sunburn forming on the pale flesh underneath her arms. _Stupid fucking bro-tanks_. She closes her eyes and points in the direction that she recently heard a voice. "Hey, you, will you help me up, please?"

Louis opens her eyes to see the girl -- Liam? What even was her alias? -- let out a sharp laugh and shake her head, "I'd rather not." 

"Oh, right," Louis lays down her hand and sighs. She forgot that she already made enemies with that one. "Note to self: don't ask for favors from the overdramatic puppy. What about you, blondie? Wanna give your teammate a hand?"

She opens her eyes to watch the blonde as she leans down and outstretches a disturbingly pale hand for Louis to grab. She grasps her hand that's only a bit bigger than her own and shifts her weight to stand up again. Her legs are a bit wobbly, like she was just the recipient of some stellar head, and her shirt is sticking to her sweaty spine. She feels like if someone took a picture of her right now, the science museums in the future would display it under a plaque that states ' _Here is a photo of the wild Louis Tomlinson, also known as Human Trash.'_

"Thanks, mate, always knew I could count on you," Louis slaps the blonde's back heartily. "Hey, Ultra, I thought of my new alias! How does Human Trash sound to you?"

Ultra looks up from where she was dragging several punching bags onto the middle of the courtyard to shoot Louis a dimpled smile, "Disturbingly accurate."

"You're such a bitch, Ultra," Louis yells. "I _love_ it."

"So, you'll befriend Ultra, but not us?" Eco asks, not-so-subtly shouldering her way to get in between Louis and the blonde, pouting at Louis owlishly.

"Don't get jealous, Curly. It's just a bit of banter, really." Louis shrugs, eying Ultra, who is now bent over and adjusting the placement of the bags. "Brother wanna thank your mother for a butt like that," she murmurs appreciatively.

"I don't understand you," Eco says warily.

"You don't have to," Louis says easily, watching as the other girls slowly meander towards where Ultra is now waving for them. "Well, that's my cue to leave this awkward situation."

She stops in front of Ultra, standing next to Thought, who doesn't have a trace of sweat on her body and not a single strand of hair out of place. Louis _hates_ her for being so gorgeous all of the time. It's like all of the girls are on supermodel steroids to make them graciously pretty all of the time and she's just a potato trapped in an unattractive girl's body. Eco is still pouting at her pathetically, and the puppy girl is shooting silent daggers at her for seriously no apparent reason. Moments like this wonder how Louis can even manage being a lesbian, seeing as she hates almost all girls so much.

"Okay, Louis. Show your team what you've got." Ultra says.

Louis raises an eyebrow, "If I would've known this was an early morning strip tease, I would've worn my sexy underwear."

The blonde lets out a sharp laugh and Ultra's dimpled cheeks immediately redden. Louis smiles proudly, _see,_ she can still be completely hilarious in the wee hours of the morning. _Take that, Ms. Cobalt, you never believed in my comedic genius._ Even Ultra is holding back a laugh.

"Your _ability_ , Blaze, show the girls your ability." Ultra pats the punching bag. "Give this thing hell."

"Alright," Louis takes a step forward, shaking out her hands. "I can do that, I am quite intimate with hell, seeing as that's where I'm going in a few years."

"That's quite pessimistic," someone -- Li? What _was_ her real name? -- says.

"Yeah, well," Louis pulls back her closed fist, closing her eyes to get her mind in a state of half-focus. "The world isn't all sunshine and motherfucking rainbows, mate." With that, Louis punches against the bag, expecting for the familiar burst of an explosion to form under her fist, but nothing happens.

"Well," she says dejectedly. "that wasn't as nearly as badass as I wanted it to be."

"You have to _focus_ , Blaze. Nothing is going to happen if you don't make yourself angry enough to cause for the reaction." Ultra explains. "Envision someone that's really pissed you off, then hit."

Louis feels her cheeks heat up, suddenly aware of how everyone is watching her _fail_ so intently. She swallows, trying to force her mind back to the angry state that she used the last time she made everything explode.

She closes her eyes and imagines Danielle Hopkins, the Jesus freak at her old school that hugged Louis and told her that her cancer _was all part of God's plan_ like a total douchebag, she punches the first bag, feeling the heat course through her with the force of the explosion, she kicks the next bag closest to her, imagining that it was stupid fucking Erin, who told her that she was too much to handle and that's why she had to be alone while dealing with her cancer, she punches the bag after it, squinting through the smoke of the explosion, and for an insane, hallucinatory moment, she swears that she sees the smarmy smile of the prick in the alleyway that tried to rape her. She feels blinded by so much _anger_ , and she can't find the will in herself to stop destroying everything in her path until she hears someone screaming her name.

She looks up, eyes watering from the smoke and vainly trying to sort out the huddled figures that are coughing through the dying flames of the explosions. For a moment she sees someone there that she _knows_ isn't there, and it makes her knees threaten to buckle, but she knows that it's not -- that it _can't_ be what her heart hopes it is.

But then the illusion shatters and Ultra begins to speak, "What were you thinking? You have to be in control of your emotions before you go on a frenzy like that. You could cause so many unwarranted casualties if you don't learn how to keep yourself from being so aggressive."

Louis looks down at her knuckles, that are blistered and bleeding slightly at the knobby bones. She doesn't know what to say.

"You could _kill_ people with your powers, Blaze. You have to work with someone to get yourself in shape, not only physically but mentally."

"Who cares if someone dies?" Louis asks, wrapping her hurt first in the flimsy fabric of her shirt to try and stop the bleeding and sudden pain that has started to course through her once her adrenaline has settled down. "I mean, it's going to happen to everyone eventually. There's no need to be so afraid of it."

"Louis --"

"Im just saying, the more you try to run from death and act like it doesn't exist, the harder it's going to rear its ugly head at you and make you suffer." Louis begins to walk away from the girls, but she pauses and turns around to stare back at Ultra, residual anger still pooling in her stomach. "Maybe _you_ should get some mental help instead, because I have a pretty good fucking view about how this world works."

She keeps walking towards the doors, shoulders hunching in on herself as she listens to the others talk about her in not-so-hushed voices. This must be how Chicken Little felt, all deviated for being smarter for everyone else. It sucks.

She rounds a small hallway and searches vainly for the elevator, she randomly chooses to walk down another one and is met with Ultra, who is leaned against a glass door that leads back to the courtyard. Her eyes are actually filled with sympathy, which is... weird, really.

"I didn't mean to be so rude to you," Ultra murmurs.

"You were being honest," Louis shrugs. "Just not smart. You can't be blamed for not being as well-cultured as I am."

Ultra lets out a soft laugh, "I know for a fact that you're just from shite town in Doncaster and you can't read past a fifth grade level and have an open hatred for anything that's slightly culturally refined, even new types of food. You're full of shit."

"You found my blog, did you?" Louis hums. "And I know I am."

Ultra starts to walk down a different hallway, one that's filled with lilac hues and the same mural of the old guy with a pained smile. "I'm sorry for how I acted. I should've figured that death was a... sore subject for you."

"It's not _my_ cancer that's made me view life this way," Louis says, and she's actually not lying or hiding behind sarcasm when she tells Ultra it.

"Then what happened?" Ultra asks, eyes widening imploringly.

"Obviously, you need to do some more research about me."

** THE MOMENT IN THE PAST IN WHICH LOUIS FUCKING PANICS:  **

"I fucking hate needles," Ed murmurs as he sticks a massive one directly into one of Louis' protruding veins. "They creep me out."

"Well, that's a bit reassuring, seeing as you're my doctor and all." Louis says, leaning back against the uncomfortable vinyl-covered chair and scrunching her nose as Ed makes a small retching sound. "Next you're going to tell me that you have a deep-running hatred for gingers."

Ed lets out a small laugh and rolls across the bright linoleum floor on his pink spinny-chair, and then he pauses before grabbing a clipboard from the small counter and rolling back. He has his hair tied back in a half-bun today, and Louis supposes that it would look very chic, but the fact that it's tied with a neon green scrunchie and she can make out a random piece of food stuck in the tufts of red hair by his ear lowers the hairstyle from the level of Disgruntled Hipster that Spends Hours Making Sure that They Look Like They Don't Give a Fuck to one of a Possibly Homeless Man that Doesn't Have the Energy to Give an Actual Fuck. He looks at something on one of the digital screens that's suspended over Louis' shoulder and makes a small sound of content before beaming directly back at her.

"Nope, I'm just scared of needles. And treadmills -- but that's a different (but still totally rational) thing entirely." Ed shrugs then points his pen at Louis. "I hear that you haven't been playing nice with your team, what's up with that?"

"I swear, everyone is acting like we're just a bunch of rambunctious toddlers in our very first pee-wee football league. We all don't _have_ to get along and learn about morals like sportsmanship." Louis makes a bubble with the rapidly-staling piece of gum that she stole from Eco earlier and then pops it. "Besides, I highly doubt that you all want me to ' _play nice_ ' with these girls anyways -- unless you _want_ a super awesome mutant lesbian orgy on your hands."

Ed blushes in a grand way that branches all the way from his chin to his ears while he shakes his head at Louis in mock-disapproval. "That's not what I meant, and you know it. I'm just saying you can at _least_ attempt to have a semi-cordial conversation with the girls, or, I don't know, try to learn their _names._ "

"Oh, Edward, I didn't know that you were just like the others," Louis bites. "I know you're probably trying to help me with my benefit in mind, but lemme tell you that in this particular case teamwork does _not_ make the dream work."

"You know that I am a doctor and I can easily poison you if you get on my bad side, right?"

"At least I know that it won't be death by lethal injection," Louis shrugs, eying the needle and barking out a quick laugh when Ed's face goes pale from the thought of it.

"Why are you so afraid to open up to these girls?" Ed asks once he (finally) regains a little bit of composure. "Are you scared that your cancer will come back and that you'll die and break their hearts after you get to know them?"

 _Daaammn Ed, back at it again with the extremely perceptive observations,_ she thinks bitterly before shaking her head. "That seems like a very unlikely but noble thought for my sick mind to come up with. And, seriously, what's up with how everyone here is so unabashed about trying to pry into my private life? Like, what's the point of reading a book if everything about the main character is explained before the exposition even starts? I am a girl that's wrapped up in questionable choices and mysterious traits, and I would like to keep it that way."

"I don't think that you quite understand what this team stands for yet, Lou--"

"Don't call me Lou," she interrupts quickly.

Ed nods before continuing, "This team is one of the first of its kind to exist, and there is a lot that's hanging on it. I mean, not only are there so many prejudices about how you're all women and that it would never work because there wouldn't be a man to take charge once you all got in trouble, but there are also so many douchebags around the world that are anxiously awaiting for you all to _fail_ so that they can spout meninist shite at you and 'mansplain' to the world that a group of girls should never be trusted to save it. And don't forget the fact that there are so many young, impressionable girls that _need_ to witness a message that only you all can express. Younger girls need to know that women are strong and that they _can_ defend themselves on their own. They need to know that you don't have to be pretty in order to succeed and you don't have to believe people in your life when they say that it's bad to hit like a girl. There's a lot of stress on all of you to _change_ society's viewpoint, and the other girl's have grasped that and lean on each other for support when the worry starts to become too much."

Louis pops another bubble with the gum, and she has to force herself to look away when Ed looks directly at her, eyes searing with the heavy weight of sincerity. She stares deliberately at her socked feet that have the small prints of sunflowers embedded on the green fleece (it was another one of the things that mysteriously ended up at the foot of her bed -- she's starting to think that Eco has something to do with it.)

"You might reach a point where _you_ feel stressed out and need someone," Ed explains. "And when you're in an environment with other people that you can possibly be hurt in, you have to form a connection with them so that you can trust them with your life. It's common superhero logic."

"Common Superhero Logic," Louis echoes, turning the words over in her head before looking back at Ed. "Does this mean that you're a superhero, too? What's your power? Wait, don't tell me, I have just made an image in my head that your power is to manipulate fire and that your alias is Fire Crotch, and I will be absolutely gutted if that illusion is shattered."

"No, but I am an Empath," Ed taps his forehead with a gloved finger. "So I can sense that you're deflecting your feelings of anxiety and worry with humor."

"Isn't that what everyone in my generation does now? Sarcasm is the truest expression of art, you know."

Ed laughs, smiling so hard that his lips fold inwards to make way for his slightly-yellowed teeth. "On a more serious note, I am just saying that it wouldn't hurt you to at least open yourself up a little bit to them and give them a reason to like you."

"I don't know," she murmurs. "It seems a bit like a lost cause, you know? I would rather keep everything about me to _myself_ and not bare my soul to them -- I want to maintain this anonymity."

"You do know that you probably _don't_ have the anonymity that you think you do, right?" Ed asks, taking the needle out of her vein with a slight disgusted cringe. He stays silent for a while as he takes her blood sample and moves it into a blue box and writes on his clipboard for a bit. He looks up at her, eyes deep and assessing and lips schooled into a slight grin as he says, "You are aware that you're on a team with a girl that can read thoughts, right? Chances are that she already knows all of your secrets that you're holding so tightly to your chest, so what's your excuse, now?"

A cold press of dread slams over her like the rough slap of an ocean's wave, and suddenly her head is filled with a chorus of worried voices saying that _she knows, she knows everything, she knows._ Louis forces her mouth to take the shape of a rigid smile and swings her legs off of the uncomfortable chair that her bare thighs were starting to stick to, anyways, and runs her hands over her buzzcut anxiously, she half wishes that she still had her collar-bone length hair just so that she could twist her fingers in the long, usually colorful strands in a placating way that she used to always do thoughtlessly. Ed is watching her, eyes boring into her profile as she clears her throat awkwardly and looks over at him.

"Well, I feel bad for her." she says, voice sounding high and anxious even in her own ears. "There's no telling how many lesbian fantasies she's overheard in my mind. I hope she's okay with how much I miss my colorful vibrators."

"Louis --"

"There was this one that was absolutely small but mighty, you know. I named it Beatrice." she lets out a nervous laugh. "Hey, speaking of vibrators -- who even decided to invent those heavenly pieces of thrumming silicon, anyways? Like, that has to take a person with pretty big balls to decide that 'Hey, I wanna stick a machine that fucking _vibrates_ into my _vagina_ \-- or arsehole, I'm never one to discriminate."

" _Louis_ , just talk to her if you're worried about her knowing about you."

"I'm _not_ ," Louis snaps, words tasting rancid in her mouth and stomach twisting with the fact that she just lied to the only person she trusts in this place. "I -- I should probably go, actually."

**_//_ **

Louis finds all of the girls sprawled over the massive couch in the living room, talking to each other in hushed voices as some sort of plucky sitcom plays quietly on the massive television. They don't notice her hovering over them with her feet turned towards one another at first, but when she inhales a bit loudly Eco's massive eyes immediately glance over at her before they crinkle up with the force of the smile that she aims directly at Louis. Louis forces her lips into a thinly disguised shadow of Eco's smile, noting that her wild hair is once again pulled into a loose ponytail that rests at the crown of her head, but she missed a single strand that spans down the nape of her neck and runs over her spine. The other girls are still talking loudly, detached in a world totally dependent of this one; but Eco is there, staring at her earnestly with those stupid fucking glittering emerald eyes that are worthy of all of the most explicit and lovely adjectives that Louis can conjure up. She tilts her head, signaling for Louis to take a seat in the open armchair; Louis decides to not be a little shit for once and sits precariously in the plush leather that's probably more expensive than her entire old house.

"Oh, hey Blaze!" the blonde greets her eagerly. "Where'd you head off to?"

Louis shrugs, feeling around the side of the chair blindly before the leg rest appears, she sprawls her legs over the soft leather and sighs, "Oh, I was just paying Ed a visit, gave him something to fantasize about until the next time I see him."

Thought releases a sound that can only be described as a loud cackle and the other brunette -- _what in the fuck was her name?_ \-- lets out a scandalized gasp and says, "You fraternized with our _medic_?"

Thought smacks the brunette over the head, "Shut up, Li--" that's it; _Liam._ Why can Louis never remember that? She blames cancer. "--she's obviously gay."

"You can't just assume that based off of someone's haircut," Liam murmurs haughtily.

" _Please_ , you're the one that told everyone that you thought she was gay because of her buzzcut in the first place. _We_ had to give you a lesson in common courtesy," the blonde explains, but the other two girls are already fighting.

"No, Liam, I _can_ assume that she's gay because her thoughts might as well be waving around rainbow flags -- she _oozes_ with the gay."

 _So, she_ has _been fishing around in my mind._ Louis leans forward and eyes Thought, forcing a rigid smile onto her lips as she grits out, "I'm not sure about the use of the word 'oozes' but thank you. I also _really_ appreciate how you have no qualms with sharing personal things about me to everyone else, it makes me feel _super_ secure with that entire trust bullshit that everyone has been trying to deepthroat me with. Since I've already been outed, I guess that I can say that even though I'm not a fan of dicks -- you, _Thought_ , are one of the most repulsive dicks that my lesbian mind can imagine."

Thought at least has the decency to look properly ashamed with herself, but Louis doubts that she even knows _why_ Louis is so pissed. Most teenage girls have zero qualms with talking about someone else's personal shit and they appear to be disturbingly detached from any sense of shame when it comes to hurting others. It seems like every girl Louis comes across is just power-hungry and _wants_ to have the gossip that'll thrust them into the limelight for a few moments. Louis would know, she was that way, too, before the entire brain cancer thing happened and fucked her over and made her even more cynical than she already was.

"Louis, I'm sure that Zayn didn't mean to offend you like that," Eco explains, voice slow and smooth and hands wringing nervously in her lap. "Like, I know it's very bad to _ever_ out someone and it not be on their terms -- like, it sucks and it's not fair and _I_ would never appreciate it. But, I think Zayn just wanted us to warm up to you? I'm not sure? I wasn't there when they talked about it, but. Z would never do something malicious to you."

Eco stares at Louis for a moment, plush lips falling into a pout before she schools it into a small smile that she aims at Thought (oh yeah, _Thot_. Louis should've known better than to trust someone with such a tragic alias.) Unfortunately Named Zayn nods in agreement to Eco's words, standing from where she was entwined with the other two girls and holding out a hand towards Louis.

Louis smacks her hand away and moves down the footrest of the recliner before standing on her own, she can feel all of the girls eyeing the snarl that's etched on her lips and cheeks that are red from the coursing anger that's thrumming through her right now, and if anything the eyes on her just makes her _angrier._ She feels like a caged animal stuck in some hellish teenage girl purgatory and she just wants to lash out. She's a minute away from using her ability to punch Stupid Asshole Zayn through the wall, right into the painting that looks like a landscape that's constructed out of a lot of warm colored vaginas.

"I don't care if it was malicious or not," Louis snaps, assessing Thought as she takes a step closer. The girl isn't as supermodel pretty as Louis first remembers, her eyebrows are a bit untamed and her front teeth overlap a little bit, but if anything the small 'flaws' just make her seem even more unfairly pretty to Louis -- and a whole lot more like a normal girl that she could punch in the face and feel zero sympathy for afterwards. "You know, I figured that the first thing that you all would be taught in Superhero Camp is that with great power comes at least a little bit of common fucking decency. Perhaps you skipped that little lesson, Thought?"

"That's the only thing that I told everyone, Louis, I promise." Thought says, taking a wary step backwards.

Louis looks away from her overly-earnest eyes, heart thrumming louder than the stereo systems that are used at fucking Coachella. Her arms are being overtaken by the presence of goosebumps and she's still hyperaware of all of the other  girls surrounding them, watching them with a rapt sort of attention that could be equivalent to that of those sick spectators at the Roman Colosseum that lived to watch some poor sod get ripped to shreds by a lion or some shit. Her slow, cancer-addled mind has enough sense to at least remind herself to make the others leave before she starts to figure out exactly how _much_ this intuitive fuckstick of a goddess even knows.

"Leave," she tells the others, bottom lip quivering with agitation. Eco nods and immediately begins to walk away, but the other girls stay rooted on the couch.

"No, we're not leaving. Whatever you have to say can be said in front of us, because we're a _team._ " Liam says, brown eyes glowering directly back at Louis.

Louis clenches her fist, agitation boiling through her small frame as her mouth sets in a defiant line. She glances down and notices that a few flecks of embers are stemming from her fist, almost like a warning that she's less than half a second from making something explode, which, you know, is pretty fucking badass and she would take a moment to appreciate her ultimate badassery if she wasn't too busy being angry at every single person that resides in the fucking hellhole of a house.

"Yeah, no, I'm out." The blonde stands up and waves towards the room at large. "Have fun with this fight, or whatever, just know that if the telly gets broken then I'm quitting the band."

"This isn't a band," Liam calls towards the blonde that has already retreated.She stays like that for a moment, head leaned all the way back against the headrest of the couch and long throat exposed as she watches the other girl go. She waits until the blonde is gone before standing directly in front of Louis, towering over her a bit, which, yeah, isn't the _biggest_ confidence boost to her already flimsy ego, but she's still pretty sure she can take her. "I'm not scared of you, Blaze."

"Well you fucking should be," she grits out. "I have never had much of a liking for you and I _really_ doubt that those stupid training sessions with Ultra have prepared you for a fight, so I could happily kick your flat arse easily."

Liam raises one of her over-expressive eyebrows at Louis and opens her mouth to say something that is surely lacking of wit and is only mildly threatening, but she's cut off by Thought. "Liam, please leave. I need to speak with her alone."

Liam moves towards the other girl, hand resting on Thought's elbow and mouth gaping in slight confusion. She side-eyes Louis before murmuring, "But what if she tries to hurt you? You're not trained to fight."

Thought looks over at Louis, eyes a bit guarded but still wrapped in a slight warmth that makes her feel uncomfortable, "She won't hurt me."

Liam clutches a bit tighter to Thought's arm, looking like she still has something to say, but she doesn't. Instead the two girls just stand there, hands entwined and brown eyes searching each other's for a span of time that feels infinite.

"Is it just me or did things get super gay in here?" Louis asks, out loud. "I thought that _I_ was the only certified lesbian in this house's midst."

Liam narrows her eyes at Louis, "Why are you making jokes? I thought that you were pissed at Thought."

"Oh," Louis laughs and steps forward, clutching the neck of Liam's thin shirt in her first. "I am. I just have a penchant for diffusing awkward situations with a well-placed joke or two. But believe me, I'm pissed and you're in my way. So you better leave and run away as fast as your pale legs can take you because Daddy needs to express some rage."

Liam's breath hitches for a moment before she looks over at Thought, "Zee?"

"Go, Liam. This won't take long." Thought says calmly, brown eyes turning warm as she smiles confidently towards Liam.

She seems so fucking calm, and for some reason that just pisses Louis off even more.

Liam makes a choked-off sound, clearly not feeling good about this entire situation at all, and she pointedly stomps out of the living room with a dramatic toss of her brown hair that would make wannabe teenage actresses envy her prowess at taking on the role of 'perturbed teenage girl that just wants to be like Regina George.' Louis almost makes a comment that Liam looks a lot better going than she does coming, but she decides against it at the last minute because she's still fucking _pissed._

"Fucking hell, Thought! Why in the hell did you think that it's okay to tell everyone about me," Louis asks, voice raising higher with every word that leaves her mouth.

"I was an asshole, I know. But I _swear_ that I didn't tell anything else."

"Why should I trust you, Thought, seriously? You invaded my fucking privacy by digging around in my thoughts and then you decided to tell the others? What if I wasn't _ready_ to let anyone know about my sexuality?"

"That's not what you're worried about, Louis," Thought says patiently with that same fucking serene smile plastered on her face. "You and I both know it. You're worried about the other things that I know."

"No, I'm not. I'm worried about your recklessness when it comes to my own _personal_ issues. It's not fair that everyone keeps preaching that _I_ need to learn how to control my power when you don't even have the slightest bit of morals when it comes to yours. You might not give a shit about my feelings, but _I_ do, and I don't fancy you getting in my head and trying to figure out what went wrong with the little black sheep of the group."

"I'm sorry," Thought says, voice dipping with slight hilarity. "I didn't -- that wasn't my intent at all. I just, you don't understand how _sad_ it feels to be around your thoughts, I couldn't help it. And when I first realized your situation I just -- I just ---"

"You just what? Thought it was okay to just go through my head? Did you think, _oh, since I know that a bunch of doctors and therapists didn't have to ask before searching her body and mind for answers about what's wrong with her, surely I don't have to ask for permission, either_. Fuck you, Thought. Seriously."

"I'm sorry! I don't know how to explain it but I swear that I am. I'm sorry that I didn't ask first or at least try to get to know you personally and I--" Thought cuts herself off and sucks in a deep, harried breath. It's only then that Louis realizes that with each word Thought says, the faster she speaks and the slight Middle Eastern accent that she has becomes a bit more prominent. "I am so sorry about what you've been through. I'm sorry about your family, and your cancer and... I'm sorry about your Liz."

Louis feels a cold trickle of sweat trail down her spine, and half of her wants to lash out. She wants to wrap her hand around Thought's golden neck and cut off the air flow until Thought can never say Liz's name again. She wants to scream and punch everything in the living room until there is nothing left but the smell of smoke and flickering embers left in the ash. But mostly, she wants to cry, because even though she hasn't heard Liz's name for six months, it still hurts as badly as it did the first time she realized that she had lost her.

"Fuck you," Louis bites.

"She seems lovely," Thought pushes, taking a cautious step forward before placing her small, warm hand on Louis' shoulder. "I would've loved to have met her."

Louis stares at Thought, really stares at her, and she thinks that if a poet wanted to capture that moment they would spew some nonsense about how Thought's warm eyes were like ember that were trying valiantly to melt the cool, icy blue of Louis'. There's something obvious in the shift of the tension on the air in the room, how it escalates and then plummets from that of obvious anger to fumbling desperation. Louis doesn't quite remember what happens next, she just knows that her mind is only filled with the singular thought that _Liz is gone_ and then suddenly she's collapsing into Thought's arms while she lets roaring sobs force their way out of her trembling body. It doesn't make sense to her, because she's still so mad at Thought, but she finds herself wanting to trust her, wanting to have her by her side. She draws up the sudden change of heart to cancer, because that damned thing always fucks with her emotions, and then she clutches tighter into Thought's warm embrace.

 ** _//_**  
Later on, after an hour long heart to heart with Zayn and an awkward confrontation with Ultra when she forced her way into the living room and reminded them of their curfew, Louis shuffles into her shared room with Eco.

Eco doesn't notice Louis at first, too busy laughing at something on her laptop. She has her hair loose, now, falling in loose waves around her blanket-covered shoulders, with one strand tangled in the white headphones that are nestled in her ears. She decides to give Eco some privacy and shuffles over to her side of the room to grab a change of clothes. She is just reaching for one of the oversized t-shirts that she nicked from her roommate when she notes the sealed box that's perched on the end of her bed that's marked with the word _Tomlinson_ in thick sharpie. She chances a quick glance at Eco, who is still entranced with what's probably a video chat, before reaching for it and ripping off the duct tape.

She opens one of the flaps and sucks in a deep breath when she spots the familiar florescent pink then takes another glance at Eco to make sure she's still not paying attention before taping the box shut once again. She slips the cardboard box under her bed and grabs a pair of shorts before leaving the room and heading towards the bathroom. She strips down and washes her body quickly, humming _Shoop_ under her breath as she shampoos her hair fruitlessly before rinsing it off. She takes a quick piss and groans out a soft _fucking cancer brain_ when she realizes that she forgot to shave her armpits in the shower.

Fifteen minutes later, she walks into the room to see that the lights are still on and Eco is clutching her laptop to her chest desperately as she lets soft tears slip down her flushed cheeks. They lock eyes for a second, Eco's emerald eyes gleaming with a vulnerability that Louis had never seen before. Her heart catches in her throat and  for some stupid, indecipherable reason Louis can't bring herself to look _away_ from the crying flowerchild, but thankfully Eco has enough of her bearings to summon her powers and manipulate one of the green vines on her side of the room to move and turn out the light.

Louis swallows nervously and walks over to her bed, throwing her other clothes on the floor before crawling into her bed and facing the wall. The room is quiet for a while, accompanying the darkness and its serene enough that she's about to fall asleep when Louis is broken from her pre-sleep addled haze.

"Hey, uh, Blaze?" Eco's raspy voice breaks the quiet swell of night that envelops their shared room later on that night. "Are you awake? I'm sorry if I've woken you."

"What, Eco?"

"Oh, hi," Eco says, voice filled with a breathless giggle. "Hi."

"Hi." Louis murmurs and turns on her bed, shoving an arm under her pillow and blinking through the darkness of the dorm until she can make out the lines of Eco's long body underneath her cover.

"Are you okay? It sounded like you were crying earlier."

Louis' jaw clenches, and her immediate thought is to lie. She wants to just give a vague response and spout something angrily about how they have to wake up at some ungodly hour in the morning so that Eco would just shut up, but she decides against it. It's too late in the night to be an arsehole, and honestly Louis' tired of hiding behind her carefully constructed walls every single moment of the day. So, she just makes a small humming sound that's supposed to be a 'yes', but honestly she can't be arsed to actually speak.

"I just have to say that I'm sorry about today. I know I wouldn't want something like that to happen to me."

"It's not your fault," Louis interrupts quickly. "I know it's not."

"I still feel bad."

"Listen, Harry. The world's never going to function if we just spend our time shifting blame from one person to the next. I said that everything's fine now, and it truly is, so if you don't have anything to say, then I'm going to go to sleep."

There's a delicate silence for a little bit, one that feels as brittle and beautiful as the petals of a spring tulip and Louis actually feels a bit surprised when the normal anxious feeling that she usually gets when it's too quiet doesn't force it's way into her system. She doesn't feel the urge to crack a joke, or say some vulgar or rude thing to Eco just so that she won't get the wrong idea of Louis. Instead she just lets the moment be, and it feels fucking great.

Until Eco decides to speak again, and Louis can suddenly label the foreign feeling that she is experiencing right now, "You called me Harry."

 _Security._ That's what it is. She feels semi-safe in this moment, with nothing but her, Harry and the moon, and it's fucking terrifying. Louis moves around in the bed once more, turning until she's facing the wall again. She bites her pillow and heaves in a heavy breath before forcing her eyes shut.

"I suppose I did," she says, and then she falls into a fitful sleep.

 

**Author's Note:**

> hi! I hope you enjoyed this, i'll be updating soon! x 
> 
> [say hi to me on tumblr!](http://voguelourry.tumblr.com/) and share this fic with your friend. please, if you make a rec -- use the tag voguelourry so that I can track it ;)


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